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2017 - Year of ?????

2016 was the Year of the Sock and indeed I made several pairs.  During the last half of the year, however, the focus had to be changed to knitting items using bigger needles, spinning or beading to give my thumbs a break.  The revised focus lead to not meeting a goal of 12 pairs of socks, but it did allow for less thumb discomfort.

For 2017 I want to use Staci Perry's comment in a recent podcast as a motivator.  Staci, aka, VeryPink with all the knitting she does, has no stash.  She purchases only when she has a specific pattern in mind.  She loves wool yarn as much as anyone else, but she controls her impulse to purchase. Very Pink will fondle it, love it and then leave it in her LYS; I want to be more like that.  So 2017 will be the Year of Stash Busting.  No new purchases unless I have a project selected with which to use it.

My current stash is large; I could knit for years with what I have here in greater Vancouver and there is a smaller amount in Minneapolis.  I have purchased things on sale generally with no idea about how it will be used.  This mode of purchasing mean I either have too much or more often too little yarn to complete a particular project.  This causes me to spend a certain amount of time scrambling on Ravelry to figure out what to knit.

So to meet this year's goal the plan is to put all like-weighted yarns together and see what project might suit the amount of yarn available.  I decided to start with some of my lace weight yarn and the pattern that best suits the yarn I have is Abalone Shawl by Carle' Dehning found here in Ravelry.

Photo credit to Nurturing Fibre
As you can see this crescent shaped shawl is a simple lace pattern in two contrasting colours with stockinette stitches used for the main colour and simple yarn overs for the lace contrasting colour.  The pattern offers a great way to use some lace yarn and that crescent shape allows it to be worn as a scarf as well as making it a perfect wearable shawl.  Knowing I need 50 grams or approximately 400 m of the main colour and 30 grams or 200 m of the contrasting colour I took a dive into the stash to see what I could find.  These are the three combinations I test knit.
         
Gold Line and Madelinetosh
The first combination is merino wool.  The main colour is Gold Line, Nirvana in a very pale lime green.  The contrasting colour is a Madelinetosh variegated green and brown combinations, unfortunately the band is missing.  I find the Nirvana double ply splits a bit too easily and frankly this combination doesn't really work.  Perhaps if the colours could be reversed it might look better, but alas there isn't enough of the variegated yarn.

Malabrigo with a Variegated Tencel
This second combination uses a heather baby merino Malabrigo lace in a colourway called Bobby Blue and a tencel variegated yarn in colours of turquoise, purple and green.  Again the band is missing for the tencel.  One of my disappointments with this set is how often I find breaks in the Malabrigo yarn.  I wound only a small amount as you can see above; there were already two breaks. Having said that, the feel of that baby merino is wonderful.  I need to knit with that yarn soon.

Vegan Cotton and Silk
The final combination is Vegan Cotton in a cream colour with a doubling of silk yarn purchased from the Silk Weaving Studio located on Granville Island.  The cotton and silk will create a lightweight shawl, something that can be used in warm weather.  These are the stash yarns I will be using to make Abalone and begin the quest of 2017 stash busting.

As an aside, knitting with lace yarn and long circular needles can be a challenge with kittens around.  The movement of both is so intriguing and tantalizing if you are five months old.  We are working on rewards and punishments suitable for the crime of chewing on yarn and needles.  The best is to remove them from my lap when they are being rambunctious, but it seems I am moving kittens more than knitting.  I will persevere though, they need to eventually learn they can sit with me when I knit, only if they don't FIDDLE WITH MY STUFF.  They are smart and will pick this up soon, I hope.




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